Barren Mare

More or less here or there

I've been struggling with two hindrances to my Floridian blogging.

Firstly, my parents' computer station is located in the basement. During the day, this is Botany's main play area. So even if someone else is looking after her for a spell so that I can check my email or whatever, I find it hard not to get distracted by all the squeaking and assorted cuteness. Then, during the evening, it is the LARGE SCREEN TV viewing area and I do find it hard to concentrate with, say, Keith Olbermann's unfeasibly ginormous visage beaming out at me from across the room.   

The second problem is that the cold virus that was plaguing me before we left Scotland entered a brief remission stage just long enough for us to travel and settle in here. Then it resumed in full force, causing renewed hacking, sputtering, exhaustion and general misery. I feel a bit better in the last couple days but it did knock me out for what seemed like a long time- or at least ensured I was in bed by nine thirty or so most nights for the last couple weeks. In any event, my parents have the lights on the house on a timer, so at ten pm on the dot, you are plunged into blackness regardless.

I am sooo sick of getting sick- I think it's time I addressed whatever it is wreaking continual havoc with my immune system; I suspect I need to up my vitamin intake. No doubt I could also do with a couple nights of really  decent sleep- something that has been a little  on the erratic side since we arrived here. It probably warrants another sleep post in its own right; let's just say any sort of sleep training is off the cards for now and the goals have changed a little bit. No working on  dropping night feeds or attempting to sleep a particular number of hours. It's now simply a case of trying to do whatever works to minimise the disruption and maximise the sleep for everybody in the house. This basically bringing Botany into bed with me about 3am. On a good night we'll happily fall asleep together until 6.30 am or so. But more often her sweaty little body and her wanting to endlessly nibble nibble nibble keeps me awake, so I'll transfer her back into her cot after a feed. Even though that usually means she wakes up at 5am and I have to stagger out of my sleep pit to fetch her back to bed again.  No matter- it keeps the peace and it works for the moment. 

Next weekend E. arrives and we move to rental accommodation down the road for a couple weeks; we're meant to have internet access there but I am not sure how that will work out. So if I disappear off the radar again for a bit, rest assured I'll be back in action when I return home  to brr chilly Scotchlandia in early May. Or at least the frequency of my posting will hopefully go from non-existent to at least intermittent.

Transatlantic Botany

Well, helloooo. I've been meaning to post an update since we got to Florida, but for the first week after our arrival, I was falling asleep at 9pm every night. And then once I started feeling up to staying up abit later, most nights I find myself generally too floppy from all the (relative) sun and (relative) relaxation to do anything other than lie on the sofa gawping at the LARGE SCREEN TV and having my mother rub my back.

Being the uber organised little cookie that I am, I did all the packing for the trip in stages over a number of days over the course of the week before our departure- partly so I didn't forget anything and partly so Botany (and the dog) wouldn't get that whiff of that Something is Up vibe that tends to send everyone into a sleepless overexcited tailspin. The night before we left, I hatched a complicated plot as to how I would accomplish both feeding the baby and getting everyone ready to leave for the airport at the appointed ungodly hour of the morning. Basically I planned on carrying out the 4am feeding, popping her back in the cot for an hour while I ran up & kicked E. out of bed and got myself ready, before getting her up, dressed and all of us out the door at 5am.

Only of course it didn't work out that way. At all. She must have ingested a dollop of Something is Up in the breastmilk that night, because she woke up at 10pm and refused to go back to sleep. Two rounds of nursing (me) and rocking (E.) and she was still awake. Exasperated, I finally got her to sleep at 12.30 and then she woke up again at 3am. Ugh. So much for that plan. 

Despite the night not having gone so well, Botany then astonished me by behaving like a perfect angel for the entire trip. I suppose I often rather unfairly assume that because she  was such a fractious little elf the first three months of her life (and because she still often seems to be toward the intense end of the baby spectrum) that she is going to be hard work when it comes to things like travelling. But even with the lack of sleep the night before, she was really as good as gold and nothing fazed her. She flashed huge gummy grins through all the security people (even when they took her from me for a minute so they could pat me down). She charmed the otherwise surly in-flight crew. She nursed on cue during take-off, thus avoiding ear-popping shrieking. Despite being crammed into seats small enough to be classified as veal crates, she played happily on our laps for the entire duration of the flight except at the appointed nap times when she slept. And she stoically endured the seemingly endless wait to meet E. on the other side of  immigration and the maddening humpfing and rechecking of the bags through customs.   

There was a point where it seemed like Botany might be getting the tiniest bit rammy from boredom, whereupon the nice stewardess asked if she would like a couple packet of peanuts (unopened) to play with. Um, sure, I said, accepting mostly out of politeness. But damn me if the baby didn't gleefully proceed to enjoy shaking, gumming, waving, crunching and generally enjoying the hell out of those things for the next forty minutes or so. Toys? Who needs toys?

I think the main thing that really saved our sanity and probably kept her from melting down through all the transitions during the trip was the Ergo. Oh, how I heart my Ergo. This is not exactly rocket science but what we did was take the easy-foldy buggy and piled all the various carry-ons into it while I carried the baby in the Ergo. I had to whisk her out briefly when we went through the security checks but it made it sooo much easier to manage all our other gubbins with having my hands free. It saved us having to mess around with getting a cart during the aforementioned humpfing of luggage around customs. And it was a particular lifesaver for me during the last leg of the journey when I was travelling on my own  and when it came time to fold down the buggy one last time for gate check.

One lesson out of this experience which I will employ for the next time- our seat assignments ended up being rather crappy for the long flight out, despite our having arrived at the airport really early in an attempt to get a better arrangement. I was on the aisle, E. in the middle and Mr. Short Straw at the window. I had implored the desk agent at check-in to maybe shuffle a person or two, so as to put us in a row on our own with nobody in the middle seat so we would have the tiniest bit more room. She claimed the flight was full. I was pretty sure this was a lie, since the night before I had looked to see if there were any rows with the seat vacancy in question and there were plenty. And then wouldn't you know, the three rows in front of us had nobody in the middle seat. Guess whose name I was cursing for the next seven hours.  Now, I know that failing to buy my baby her own seat probably means I am not entitled to complain too much, but I might point out that as it was, I paid a mighty hefty charge even for carrying her on my lap on the transatlantic leg and she didn't even get to enjoy the tasty in-flight meal and yummyyummy airline snaks. 

Anyway, what I will do for next time is reserve online the window and the aisle seats for myself and E. Hopefully nobody will end up in the middle seat but if they do, I am pretty sure they will voluntarily relocate themselves to just about any other available seat when the cabin doors close. And if there are no other seats we can opt to take pity on them by shuffling ourselves about. That's the plan anyway- in my dreams, we'll all get upgraded for the whole of the return journey, though I am guessing that they have certain criteria about that sort of thing, such as "passengers must not be covered in baby sick or indeed, be a baby."

How to win friends and influence mothers

Aw, I heart you, nice peoples for saying the nice things and expressing an appetite for more minutaie- bless you. Minutaie you shall have.  But...eeep. Having just finished saying it was OK with me if people didn't want to read any more, I was slightly dismayed at the sudden drop in bloglines subscribers.  Was it something I said?  Or didn't say?

(Actually, it really is OK- it's just that for awhile, I've been slightly perplexed about the subscriber numbers. It always seems someone is going out the revolving door just as someone else comes in. Maybe it is just the ebb and flow of the great river of the internets.)   

To be honest, I am finding my self esteem occasionally teetering toward the low end of the spectrum at the moment. Aside from feeling the constant vertigo of the parenting learning curve, another daunting aspect of new motherhood which I hadn't quite reckoned on is the extent to which one is suddenly thrust into social!group!activities!with!other!new!mothers!and!our!babies! This should really not come as such a surprise- after all, before I managed to get pregnant, it was hard not to notice that the local village was clogged with hoards of pram-pushing women, all of whom have extended maternity leave and appeared to be intent on finding somewhere to sit to feed the baby while slurping a latte.  What I hadn't previously grasped is that baby-feeding latte drinking is a Team Sport and that I would be joining the pram-pushing ranks.

Before getting pregnant, I was the sort of person who, while up for the odd bit of socialising and hanging out with friends, quite often preferred my own company much of the time. But it quickly became evident to me in the early weeks of Botany's life that if I was going to survive her infancy with my sanity intact, I was both going to have to get out of the house on a regular basis and make contact with other women who were undergoing similar sorts of experiences in baby bootcamp. Essentially, since doing endless laps of the park on my own was not really an appealing option, this meant joining groups for baby-related activities. This means making new "real life" friends.

Unfortunately, I am not exactly feeling my shiny, witty, sparkling best. I am usually pretty exhausted lack of sleep. When I am tired, my verbal skills are the first thing to go; I often have trouble stringing together a coherent sentence. I hate the way I look at the moment- I only get about 30 seconds to slap on some make-up in the morning; I can't fit into any of my pre-pregnancy trousers; most of my tops and shirts strain to contain my nursing bosom. Winter coat situation?  Bad. Can't even get it buttoned across the chest. And most days I am covered with a fair amount of dried milk (another side effect of crazy spraying boobs). So while I make a big effort and put my best foot forward, I often come away from these group encounters feeling like...a bit of a goober.

Example: first visit to my new Mother and Baby Playgroup on Thursday morning. I think I may have rolled the pram through some mud or perhaps dog poo because there was something yukky all over the wheels, and the brake is sticking again so I crashed into the door on the way in.  I was wearing my only clean trousers, slightly unflattering former IVF fat pants with a bedraggled hem. I also wore a stupid shirt over tank top ensemble which turned out to be very fiddly and constraining so that the only way to feed Botany was to get my entire boob out.  Which shouldn't be a big deal, except that I am not really "an entire boob out on first playgroup day" kind of girl. In trying to wrangle a blanket out of my bag, I knocked over a cup of coffee which had been placed by my feet. Botany kept tossing her head back and forth violently to combat the boob spray while clawing at my chest, then she did a big loud messy poo which went right up her back. I realised I had forgotten to pack a change of clothes for her. While changing her nappy, I manage to kneel in the damp coffee patch, leaving two big wet splodges on my formerly clean (though bedraggled) trousers.

Next to me sat a young trendy yummy-mummy type, with long flowing stylishly tousled hair, wearing a groovy knit mini dress and knee high suede boots. She was discussing a dinner party she planned to attend later, and reviewing her recent trip to Amsterdam with her five month old son, who was dressed in a cute little striped ensemble and burbling angelically on the playmat. 

Ugh.

However, at coffee afterwards, I got to chatting with another woman who I had clocked previously in my postnatal group. Her baby is also of the crankypants variety and on a couple of occasions, I detected the slightly deranged look of a colic survivor in her eye.  Over the obligatory lattes, we swapped a few war stories, in particular Nightmares Experienced with Screaming Infants on Public Transport. Then we agreed to make a joint venture to pram-push on foot to the nice department store in the town centre. 

"Yeah," she sighed, "I could really do with some new clothes. Nothing fits."

"Oh," I said. "Me too. I'm such a lard ass right now. But you always look really nice."  (And she does- matching sweaters/scarfs, fetching tweedy skirts, again the knee high boots).

"Oh, thank you very much," she said blushing prettily. "Actually," she went on, "I was thinking that you look really thin."

Maybe this making friends thing won't be all bad after all.   

The race is on

We got the keys to our new house on Sunday- yippee! Our initial euphoria was short-lived, however, as we discovered that it needs quite a bit more doing to it than we had originally anticipated- that is, there is no carpet, no floor covering, no tiles, bare bulbs everywhere and no decorating apart from stark white walls.  The acoustics when the dog barks are quite ear shattering.  I guess in reality we knew we would have to do all this, but we were simply in denial.   

We spent most of the week not to mention the entire weekend traipsing around the shops trying to organise all of the interior decorating in one fell swoop. We can't really move in properly until we get something down on the floor, so for the time being we are still camped out in the rental flat.  Fortunately both E. and I are capable of being ruthlessly decisive about purchasing fixtures and fittings, but it's frankly exhausting, not to mention eye watering expensive at times, since we don't have the luxury of time to do a lot of price checking and shopping around.  I feel like the clock is tick, tick, ticking on to my due date- now only about 8 weeks away. Aieee.

Plus, all of this scurrying about like decapitated chickens is just to accomplish basic home furnishing, which means I have yet to acquire any baby items whatsoever.  We keep driving by the big baby gubbins supply store- the dog and I eagerly hang our heads out the window, panting and drooling (albeit for different reasons). And then instead I find myself in the the paint aisle of the DIY store arguing about the respective merits of natural calico versus natural hessian. Or possibly natural wicker. 

Given that we both feel like we are in never-ending blue-arse fly mode, the decision was taken to proceed with bumping my maternity leave up a bit- so I have just two more weeks of work. This is probably just as well, since people are beginning to giggle when they see me coming down the corridor.  Even if it means a bit less time at the end, I'm hugely relieved to be going which to me suggests it's probably the right thing to do.   

Now if I could just get something as simple as a phone line connected.  Anticipated hook-up date is THREE weeks from now, plus another week to ten days to get internet service. A bit aggravating since I think for the phone, all they reallyhave to do is flick a switch at the exchange down the road.  But there is not much I can do, except gnash my tiny teeth and soldier on.

   

Why should it be simple when it can be so, so complicated?

Ah, internets.  I love you and miss you so much even after this brief absence that I have resorted to waddling all the way to an internet cafe to log on.  Even though it is expensive, slow, the keyboard is covered in oobleck, Typepad looks all weird, and somebody is slurping coffee next to me. But you're worth it.

The move went fine, to my great relief, and we're into the rental flat, which is nice enough. It's also quite literally NEXT DOOR to the partially completed house, and E. and I are taking turns wandering around with the dog, peering through the fence to see what progress has been made. If any. In the meantime, we're reasonably comfortable, and I don't have to worry about packing, lifting, sorting, organising or running like a headless chicken for awhile, which suits me just fine.   

Despite our original intentions to do without (a huge brain fart if ever there was one), we quickly came to our senses and decided that we simply had to hook up some sort phone/internet connection at the rental.  I discovered, after several long, tortuous plunges into the telephonic abyss with our provider of choice that we could actually get connected and then transfer the service to the new house once we move in.  But because it's a non-cable area, that means also getting the phone line connected, which is the responsibility of a different provider.

And therein lies another obstacle course of woe. You see, it appears the previous tenant decided to stop paying all his bills, before vanishing to, um, New Zealand, I think. That includes a debt left on the existing phone line (which rather inconveniently, he arranged with yet a third provider).  That company has put a bar on the line, due to the unpaid charges- and until it is taken off, we can't get our phone line up and running.  Of course, that's not OUR problem, but despite having put in the order for our service over a week ago, it's taken until today to establish that this is the issue, and so Provider A have to talk to Provider C to sort the whole mess out. Which is meant to take another five days or so.  Thereafter we can go back to try to get the internet service with Provider B, but that will take another 7-10 days, or possibly longer because it involves getting permission from the landlord.

Sigh.   

In other news, the B6 vitamins are perhaps helping a wee bit with the carpal tunnely traumas. I'm not wholly convinced, but thus am managing so that I have not felt the need to pursue the wrist brace action any further (though I have not been doing ANY knitting either, and I think I am going to want to, soon). Thank you for all your helpful advice and comments-your collective wisdom is invaluable- and makes it worth braving Cafe Oobleck, home of the slow, grungy internet service.      

Lastly, all seems well with the Apocryphetus, generally- lots of gymnastics going on in my innards which is simultaneously amusing and disconcerting. Getting more bumpalicious by the day, together with my bosoms which by the way continue to expand, alarmingly so.  I've just been to buy another bra, the size of which is so unfeasibly enormous that I burst into hysterical laughter in the dressing room when I saw it. Then I put it on, it fit, and I shut up, quickly. Good grief.

Well, I suppose we can always use it as a hammock after the baby is born.

   

Locked out

The moving house saga is already off to a rocky start. I apologise in advance if hearing about it is, well, kind of tedious. I realise in the big scheme of things it's a fairly minor irritant. But it makes me feel bit better to share this small tale of woe- and since I can't do my usual and reach for a large glass of wine to soothe the stress levels which are beginning to escalate out of control, blogging will have to be the next best thing.

OK. We signed the lease on the rental flat and picked up the keys on Wednesday- but because E. was extremely tied up with work and away on business on Thursday, we didn't get around to go over to let ourselves in until last night. I was especially chomping at the bit for E. to see the place, since he was away when I arranged to rent it.

Actually, that reminds me- I didn't tell you about the renting escapade, which in itself was a bit of a saga. You see, when I first starting looking for a flat to rent in this particular development, there were about twenty places available. The letting agency, in answer to my uber-organised advance enquiries, told me to check back "closer to the time", since it was too early to line up anything- but they assured me there would be plenty to choose from.

Then when I recently telephoned to check on availability, I was advised that there were  was only one flat for rent. One!  Only! One! Left! I was slightly freaked out to discover that the formerly abundant availability had, in the space of a month, seemingly dried up. I was ready to take it sight unseen, since we had been in a couple of the show flats previously, back when we were looking to buy, and pretty much knew exactly what the place would be like.  Alas, no. The agency absolutely insisted I had to view it before they would let me go ahead

Oh, and E. was out of the country for two whole weeks on business. Oh, and there were two other people who were interested, including a woman who was coming all the way from Spain to look at it. Oh, and they were all coming tomorrow to see it, so if I wanted it, I better come then too.

So what happens if we all want it, I asked?  Ah, well, they told me, the person with the fastest car who can get to the office quickest to hand over a cheque secures the flat. The office being on the absolute other side of town and a nightmare to get to- especially by say, public transport- my only option since I was presently without a car.

Doom, I thought. Dooooom.   

Anyway, to cut a not-very interesting story short, I ended up getting to the viewing a bit early and shown around, whereupon after the most cursory of inspections, I threw myself at the agent's feet begging to be allowed to rent it and pleading that he drive me up to the rental office in his car immediately so I could fork over vast sums of cash there and then. Maybe it was my not-so-subtle emphasis of my pregnant bump, or just the fact he wanted to close the deal, but he took pity on me and did as I asked. And I got it. I admit, I felt a teeny bit guilty when I saw the Spanish lady, who was standing patiently outside waiting to view it when we came out- but ruthlessness prevailed.

So. There we were last night, with two sets of  keys to our shiny new rental flat in our keen little paws, standing outside the main door to the block of flats, with Little Guy in tow.  Both of us were tired after a long week, and we were having a little snappy exchange about something or other- and I couldn't seem to get the door open. Distracted, I finally thrust the keys at E. and told him to do it. 

And he couldn't get the door open either. Hmm. What gives?  I tried again.  Nope. We tried all the keys on the key chain and nothing worked.  We went around to the door on the other side of the building. No joy. Door wouldn't budge. 

Problem. We had a van booked for Sunday to move a pile of essential gubbins- and the rental office is not open on weekends. Cue minor hysteria on my part. I lay awake most of last night, counting the shadows on the wall and trying to figure why the hell the keys would not work.

Much frantic phoning around this morning ensued- we tried the development sales office, figuring since they were two months behind schedule with having our HOUSE ready, they might be able to assist us with gaining access to the rental flat in the block next door. Nope, the flats having all been sold, they no longer had any keys.  Hey, why didn't we just phone a locksmith to the lock changed, the bright spark at the sales office suggested perkily. 

Um, because it's a communal main door to the block, and the other residents might not be so keen on that?  Yeah. Oh.

Finally, finally, finally, I got through to the rental office owner on his mobile phone.  He was, shall we say, less than thrilled that I was phoning him at 11am on a Saturday.  I explained the situation. I acknowledged it was unfortunate that we had been unable to discover the problem until last night, after the office had closed, but the bottom line is, we couldn't get in. And you know what he said?  Wait for it.

He said, coldly, "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

At which point I felt myself about to go into near nuclear meltdown.  ARRRRRGGGGH.  Somehow, I held it together enough to say, albeit with a certain amount of outraged spitting and fury, "Well. For starter's, I would like for you to arrange a set of keys that actually enable us to gain access to the flat we are renting through your agency. Do you think that would be too much to ask?  Since otherwise we will have to cancel our moving van, at considerable cost and inconvience to ourselves, and lose an entire weekend, which in my micro-managed moving battle plan, DOES NOT WORK." 

Upshot: he eventually made some calls, and somebody from the office came down in the afternoon to unenthusiastically let us in. Cause of the problem?  It turns out they had failed to give us the main door keys. 

Happily, the flat is very nice, and should work out fine for the two months or so we'll be there.  And I gave myself a firm talking-to this afternoon that for the sake of our unborn child, I simply MUST chill out about everything and stop running around like a loon, bug-eyed with stress.   But honestly.  It really is a trying time.

A roof over our heads

End of June.  That's when they say we'll be able to move into our new house. It was, as you may recall to be "sometime in May", but then the sales office phoned us this weekend, and announced another month delay.

Yes, they do know I'm pregnant- I already tried to wheedle my way in on that card- but clearly, they do not give a monkey's. As to just how pregnant - well, for those of you following along at home, with any luck, I will in fact be something like 33 weeks along by then. I'm guessing that humphfing large boxes of our endless crap around is not going to be high on my list of preferred activities. Just a hunch.

We've taken a lease on a flat for six months, so we do have somewhere to sleep in the interim. Unfortunately, staying where we are is not an option, since the nice people buying it sort of want to live in it themselves. As far as rental flats go, I guess it's all right- it's small- but sunny, and has the big advantage of being literally next door to the unfinished house. Which means my parents will have somewhere close by to stay when they arrive in August, other than camped out amongst unpacked boxes- which is all good.

The only downside is that it's an unfurnished rental- so we have to cherrypick everything that we need, move it to the rental, and then all the other stuff is going into containerised storage for the time being.  We have a two week gap between taking on the rental and moving out of here to achieve all this.

It may not seem like such a big deal, but I feel incredible agitated about it. Given that we have two households' worth of belongings stored in both this flat ayd two different garages, it presents something of an entertaining logistical puzzIe. I find myself lying awake at night running lists in my head, with a chain of thought going something like this:

"OK, we ultimately want the bedframe that is currently in garage 1 to go into the master bedroom of the new house, but since it's already disassembled, it would make sense to move it down the rental, and then move it across later, even if it means putting it together and taking it apart again. Or is that stupid?  Should we just move the bed we are presently sleeping on, even though that means we will  have to take it apart and move it down to the gararge, so it can go in the rental van next week- then put it back together- and then have to use the too-small double bed from the spare room until we're into the rental flat full time? Oh, fuckity."

And so on.

I'm also paranoid that we'll inadvertently send key items into storage (such as, say, the ironing board) and then have to buy another one. Again, perhaps not a big deal, but we already have two full sets of everything (having never really cleared out properly during the combining of our household crap)- and I think it would drive me over the edge to know I was wasting money on a third item, all because of a little bad planning.

Thus, I find myself wanting to run around the place putting yellow stickie labels onto things- FOR RENTAL FLAT- DO NOT PUT INTO STORAGE- like a crazy person. Which I will do as soon as I remember to bring labels home from work.  See, I've become a tad absent-minded of late (for example, today I went to work without my pass, my phone and my wallet.)  Hormones aside, I'm still not sleeping very well and I think it is beginning to take its toll . As for E., well, bless him. He can't keep track of his man- crap at the best of times, so relying on him to sort it all out would be sheer folly.

Plus, I have no idea what we're going to do about internet access over the next couple of months.  Normally, I would cope, but somehow, this does not seem the ideal time to be asked to maintain radio silence.

Shhhheaster weekend

It's been oh -so- quiet here over the long holiday weekend.  No work today,  E. isn't back from his business trip until tomorrow, and Little Guy is away having a wee holiday with E.'s parents on the island.  I felt quite guilty initially sending LG off- surely I should be able to cope with one small (albeit bouncy) puppy on my own in E.'s absence?  But then I realised that this was probably the last opportunity I would have (at least for the foreseeable future) for some time on my own.

And truthfully?  It's been rather blissful- sleeping as late as I want, rolling around the house in my jimjams, opening my closet to pull out a pair of socks without having to wrestle items of clothing from tiny, thieving jaws.  Gorging on the internet and DVDs, reading an entire book from start to finish, knittingknittingknitting (the bootie is finally completed and I'm adding a little scarf to the set).  Also as it turns out, Little Guy has been having an absolute ball, at least according to the regular emails and photo evidence from the grandparents.  Endless romps in the sunshine with his doggie buddies on the beach and in the woods and the garden.  I fear he's actually going to be miserable when he gets back to boring old home.

The one thing I have not done this weekend is buy anything, either for myself or for the little traveller within. What I really, really need is a pair of shoes for work. And I do mean need, rather than want.  In a fit of purging back when we put the flat on the market, I cleaned out the closet and binned an entire bag of nasty, old, knackered and no longer fit for wear shoes. Leaving me with two pairs of black Mary Jane-esque flats which are falling apart, one pair of goes-with-everything black heels which likewise now falling apart, and a couple of pairs of knee high boots, which I would generally wear all the time, except my legs seems to have chunked out somewhat and I can't get them zipped up over my calves. I've held back from going out to buy new shoes because people keep telling me my feet are going to expand even further, and I will end up stretching (read: ruining) my footgear. 

What to do?  Several folks at work have suggested sandally type things, or at least a shoe with an open back, but I confess, I really am not keen on that.  I like my feet to be, um, encased, wherever possible. I may just go ahead and buy a cheap pair of whatevers to tide me over until my tootsies are able to fit once more into the glass slipper. I suppose at the rate we are going, in a couple of months I am not really going to be able to see my feet anyway, so it won't matter too much what my shoes look like.

Ultrasound on Thursday.  I really am a-gog with anticipation. And of course I'll be sharing if it's a boy pony or a girl pony- after all, it's YOU, the Internets- keeper of all secrets, factoids, trivia and assorted paraphenalia.

Recovered Scream

Gah! No time, no time, no time!  I got back seven days ago and now I am going again.

It has been a hideously, ridiculously, insanely busy week- the kind where you don't have time to take a shower or iron a shirt or pluck your eyebrows or breathe. Oh, and you discover after arriving at work and having a chat with Cute Male Colleague that your makeup isn't blended properly and the two spots on your nose are glowing like a nuclear reindeer. Niiiice.

Anyway- I will be back in a couple of weeks and then I will have the puppy. So we all have that to look forward to! Yay! Do the giddy puppy dance! 

And I leave you with this in the interim.  Almost exactly two years ago I wrote about the Edvard Munch painting "The Scream" being stolen.  Well huzzah and happy days- the police recovered it from the thieves and the damage is minimal.  This fills me with a sort of cheery optimisim- that sometimes, precious things lost can be found and returned, more or less in one piece- and with a bit of interesting history to add value, and to remind us of why it was precious in the first place.

See you soon.

Not what I ordered but tasty all the same

I'm getting on a plane tomorrow for some more international travel, clutching my carefully measured carry-on bag sans liquids of any type. Hopefully I will arrive parched but intact at the other end.

I had to rootle around a bit to find the post in which I explained about my phobia of being separated for any length of time from my carry-on, but you'll be happy to know I fully intend to pack light and be a gold star luggage rule abiding citizen.  I'm operating on the mindset of "tra la la, it's just stuff" if my suitcase goes missing- though don't quote me on that if it actually does, in fact, disappear. Anyway.  I'll be gone for a bit but given my slack attitude to posting lately, you probably won't even miss me. Oh, and for good measure I might as well thow in an apology for people to whom I owe emails. I am bad, and I grovel for forgiveness for my utter laxity in that department.

One of the things that I have discovered is that if you set out to build a happy albeit childless life, you can actually wind up with a rather full schedule.  People talk about how when they have children, they are always so busy and have no life.  I too am also very busy and have almost too much life. Sometimes it makes me dizzy. 

All those things we put off while we were "trying" are now taking centre stage in demanding our attention. We're travelling a lot, even more than we used to.  I'm sitting on the board of directors of a charity (an obligation which seems to grow a hydra-like number of heads in terms of time commitment). We've pursuing a long held dream of buying a plot of land and building a house in the country. We've thrown ourselves into work, or at least tried to find ways to our make our occupations fulfilling.  Oh, and of course there is the impending arrival of a small and desperate cute puppy. He'll be here quite a bit sooner than originally planned and I am squirming with eagerness to behold his sweet furry face.

In short, life goes on and to my somewhat surprised and vaguely wary delight, it's going on a lot better than I could have anticipated. That may sound trite- of course time is a great healer and all that. But if you had told me a year ago as I sat in the ruins of our IVF attempt on the bathroom floor that I would eventually feel this much better, I honestly don't think I would have believed you.

I remain of the view that I don't know exactly what will happen to us and to our family building in the future. In the short term, the family is going to consist of the two of us and a little four legged companion. After that I can't get a clear picture. However, I am convinced that this peninsula of current contentment is no bad place from which to set sail.  At least I will have some idea of what the landscape holds if I run aground again.